You banned me with no explanation and won't respond to emails.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

i wonder if the players that got banned did shit like- remap their keybinds using AHK/mouse software, use some macro overlay etc etc

None of that is bannable.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

neither is it in line with ToS, so if their system picks up your 'unnatural' activity they can keep the ban.

anyway- reason i'm wondering is that there has to be some pattern of behaviour that the system picks up, just from a logic software side its looking for patterns

You don't know what you're talking about. People have used macros and AHK in PoE for years. They don't care as long as you don't stream it.

There has been some kind of data breach, and lots of people - including streamers - have been hacked. GGG have been locking accounts without recourse, which is actually a pretty shabby response, and I'd be furious if it affected me. They're in panic mode IMO.

The OP is almost certainly an innocent victim of this, and he's not alone.

"

t0lkien#7048 wrote:

You don't know what you're talking about. People have used macros and AHK in PoE for years. They don't care as long as you don't stream it.

And they have been banned for doing so for years. "Because other people have done it" is not a defense lol.

I do agree though, it really isn't fair to pile on the OP without any kind of evidence or the faintest idea of his personal circumstances.

But it is equally true that an automated ban system doesn't really "make mistakes" in the way some people try to describe. It is not a human capable of judging something incorrectly. It is an automatic system designed to track a specific action and if it detects that action, the ban is issued.

Think about a program designed to spit out the number "3" every few seconds. It isn't just suddenly going to start making mistakes and spitting out a 7 or a 2. That isn't how programs work. It either works or it doesn't.

The problem comes in with what OTHER things could have been running on the OPs computer. What was he doing in the background? What other games does he play? What other programs does he run? Because any ONE of them could have triggered this automated response. He will likely get un-banned if that is true. He could be completely ignorant of how another program is interacting with PoE, which led to the ban.

What folks don't seem to realize it that there isn't exactly a solution to this: in order to have security, there must be a program in place. But due to the nature and crazy variability of what people do on their computers, false positives WILL occur. It's expected. We see this with anti-virus software all the freaking time. Where you have to manually "allow" a program that anti-virus flags because it performs a "certain action that is bannable" by the virus software. At that point, a person is required to assess and deem it to be a mistake. But its the holidays right now. And support is backlogged by a LOT. Unlucky time to have triggered this, but that's really all it is: you got unlucky.

"

Poe2WarriorMan#6401 wrote:

I think the better thing is the guy is planning and admitting to lying about fraud to get money back, and saying they sent an email and everything.

Probably should not admit to it here to have ANY chance at a refund. And now they have all your information and what you plan to do

Lmfao. Yea you got banned for a good reason I am guessing

He’s well within his rights to have his CC company do a chargeback. They are there for consumer protection.

"

Excellusultima#4434 wrote:

"

Poe2WarriorMan#6401 wrote:

Support is probably overworked and also has people going on holiday

Sounds like they need to fix their automated system then, because it's inappropriate to ban people without verifying the ban is legit, and then making them wait for an indefinite amount of time.

If it's not lifted before the holidays, then I'm going to report fraud to my credit card company.

You are probably full of crap and got caught RMTing, but on the off chance you are on Steam I would not do this. If you do a chargeback on a steam game they will brick your entire steam acct.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

And they have been banned for doing so for years. "Because other people have done it" is not a defense lol.

This is absolutely untrue, and you're just making stuff up now. Stop it, or point to an example. You can't, because it's never happened. It's been talked about, but no one has ever been banned who didn't stream.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

The problem comes in with what OTHER things could have been running on the OPs computer. What was he doing in the background? What other games does he play? What other programs does he run? Because any ONE of them could have triggered this automated response. He will likely get un-banned if that is true. He could be completely ignorant of how another program is interacting with PoE, which led to the ban.

Again, you're just making stuff up. What someone does on their computer is no one else's business - least of all a game's. It's legally no one else's business and would be a nasty class action lawsuit.

But GGG does not do this, and never has.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

why would this matter? do you think they can't detect your scripts lol, they can detect what apps you run in the background like the other poster said

If you had done a modicum of research you'd know the answer to this. It matters because a stream is public. The official stance is they take a dim view of macros. The unofficial stance is they don't do anything about it. But if you encourage it publicly, you'll get ban hammered.

This conversation has been going on for years in PoE (and is the reason they implemented automated flasks).

"

t0lkien#7048 wrote:

Again, you're just making stuff up. What someone does on their computer is no one else's business - least of all a game's. It's legally no one else's business and would be a nasty class action lawsuit.

But GGG does not do this, and never has.

please...for the good of both yourself and this conversation...do NOT continue talking about things you clearly have no understanding of.

Every time you click "agree" to something, every time you install and run a program, every time you run a web browser....you are giving "them" access to all the relevant data on your computer. You are completely mistaking "information" for "operation", and even if you weren't you are still wrong. What someone does on the internet is EVERYONE'S business....and EVERYTHING is tied to the internet. The days of CD-Rom games that operate solely on your system and nowhere else is looooooooooong gone.

Do you want to know why we have to manually accept "cookies" now on nearly every website? Because there was a class action lawsuit demanding it, because websites and programs would just "get access" to EVERYTHING. But games and installed programs...these things have had that built into their ToS and inner workings since the dawn of the internet. It is the most basic aspect of how games run, ESPECIALLY "always online" games. In fact....that's precisely why the entire game world shifted to "always online". More data. And easier access to users to 1) protect their own intellectual property and 2) secure their games via program detection

Just....stop. Don't go any further. I don't think you even realize how much your ignorance is showing.


And for the record: GGG has explicitly called out AHK and macros as potential bannable programs. They did say generally that the rule is "one operation per button", but they specifically TOLD you (and its written in the ToS) that they can detect what programs you are using outside of the game. It's how ALL bans are detected. Hardly anything is caught from "within" the game, like a trade or something. While the game is running, it is constantly receiving and sending data to and from your machine, collecting everything. THAT is how irregularities are detected.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

please...for the good of both yourself and this conversation...do NOT continue talking about things you clearly have no understanding of...

<snip long, condescending, self indulgent rant>

...And for the record: GGG has explicitly called out AHK and macros as potential bannable programs. They did say generally that the rule is "one operation per button", but they specifically TOLD you (and its written in the ToS) that they can detect what programs you are using outside of the game. It's how ALL bans are detected. Hardly anything is caught from "within" the game, like a trade or something. While the game is running, it is constantly receiving and sending data to and from your machine, collecting everything. THAT is how irregularities are detected.

Yes, the ToS specifically addresses macro use i.e. "macros that perform multiple actions with a single keypress or click" - Section 7. No one has suggested otherwise. That's not the point. It has never - not once - been enforced. There was a single case of the streamer Zizaran being temporarily banned because he typed "12345" in chat, which was interpreted as a flask macro. His ban was later lifted, and Chris himself apologized for it. That's it. That's the only case in more than 10 years of play (that I can find, or that I've heard of).

This is the point. GGG doesn't care about AHK or macros unless it's used for botting (which is aggressively detected and banned - although following GGG's history with grey currency sites is eye opening). Is the use of macros against the ToS? Technically, yes, and so is using a stick taped across the "12345" keys (which just highlights the absurdity of trying to detect it). Have they ever been used as an excuse to ban anyone? Never. Could they be in the future? Technically, yes.

I'm not advocating for the use of macros. I'm just correcting the misinformation being spouted here as fact. GGG is a pretty reasonable company to deal with. They don't throw the ban hammer around without clear cause.

The ToS doesn't anywhere specifically claim the right to detect programs being used on user computers. Read it. It's not there. There is some vague implication they might possibly claim the right to do something like that if a user was messing with their "services", but that's it. If they ever did do it, they would find themselves answering to vigilantly defended privacy laws. Good luck.

I'm not a lawyer, and the law on it differs in various countries. I do know a games ToS has never been directly tested in court (Zappos.com, Steam, and Epic games cases only indirectly dealt with ToS's and they all lost/were settled out of court). The prevailing legal opinion AFAIK is that they would not survive such a test.

edited because 3 quotes ruled fuked my comment lol